Patriotism or Propaganda?

A talk by Dr Guy Hodgson

Patriotism or propaganda? The things the Guardian did not tell you in the Second World War.

All media were subject to censorship between 1939 and 1945 and that affected the dialogue between newspapers and their audiences. Successes were exaggerated and reverses diminished in reports even when readers in bombed areas could see for themselves the gap between the journalism and the truth.

Knightley, Conboy and other historians have noted that this is the default position of Fleet Street in times of conflict but there is evidence that British newspapers exceeded even the strictures placed upon them by the censor and the inclination to support ‘our boys’ in the Second World War, abandoning the normal tenets of reporting. Using the Guardian Archive in John Rylands Library, memos by the Manchester Guardian editor W. P. Crozier reveal that the newspaper chose not to reveal several important stories.

The lecture will look at these omissions and other examples of mis-truths and propaganda that were generic in Fleet Street and the local press between 1939 and 1945. It will ask why Crozier and other editors supinely followed the official line to an extent that even Home Intelligence, which monitored morale for the government, felt their coverage was counter-productive and was holding back the recovery process.

For historians the newspapers of that period are important for what is omitted and how news was moulded to meet the need to preserve morale; for readers it increased the distrust in what appeared in their newspapers, a legacy that endures to today.